On Saturday Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com's Market Movers had this rejoinder to Mr. Gross from Yves Smith:

We've noticed a new theme among economics writers: Extreme Measures.

Commentators have suddenly looked into the abyss, either of the depth of the US subprime/housing problem or the progressing credit crunch that has already caused a seize up in the money markets, and are proposing radical courses of action.

Our first sighting was Paul Krugman, who in a departure from his normally sound policy proposals, said the Federal government should rescue victims of the housing bubble via buying up mortgages at a discount and renegotiating terms with stressed borrowers (he did at least admit this would require a tremendous amount of lawyering and said he was open to other means to achieve this end).

This week, we heard a broadly similar proposal from Bill Gross, chief investment officer of fund manager Pimco, which makes him one of biggest bond buyers in the world. He's not afraid to take strong views; in one of his recent letters to investors, for example, he declared Moody's and Standard & Poors to have been duped by " the makeup, those six-inch hooker heels and a `tramp stamp,'" of wayward collateralized debt obligations, the complex instruments that have been distributed over the globe, many with subprime exposures....